April 13, 1934

President MacCracken led trustees, faculty and about 300 students in a peace march through Poughkeepsie, the first time such an event had happened since 1917, when the object was to urge President Wilson to enter the war.

Lucille Harvey ’34, the president of the Political Association, carried the American flag, and MacCracken helped carry a banner urging international peace. Joining him and the students were college warden Eleanor C. Dodge ’25 and trustees Helen Kenyon ’05, Mabel Hastings Humpstone ‘94 and Ruth Hornblower Greenough ‘08.

Students sang the “Gaudeamus” and “Baa Baa Bombshell.” “I marched at the tail end of the peace parade…and there was an elephant from the circus, a Great Dane, & a pony following behind me. It was most terrifying.”

MS student letter